I Does
by Kagenoyuushi
Summary: Toki confronts Skwisgaar about why the band took so long to rescue him and Abigail.


Toki lay in the Mordhaus hospital wing, trying to concentrate on anything else other than the fact his whole body ached from the stress of everything that had happened in the previous hours to the band's return to the safety of the haus. The others had said something about going to get drunker than they ever had in their lives, but Toki had not been allowed to join them. Instead, Offendsen insisted he rest in the hospital until a doctor cleared him to return to normal activities.  
Though he was glad to be home, as he stared up at the ceiling, a nagging, unpleasant thought pushed its way to the forefront of his mind. He had been given a phone to keep himself occupied with games and apps upon his return, and the first thing he had noticed was the date. It was now mid-September. Roy Cornickelson's funeral had been in July. Where had the band been for a month and a half?  
"Skwisgaar?" the first place Toki wandered after the doctors had set him free was the Swede's room. He paused at the door to hear the familiar sounds of rutting, but knocked anyway. Skwisgaar never seemed to mind being interrupted when he was with his flock of skanks.  
"Ya?" Skwisgaar called between grunts.  
"It's Toki," Toki said just a little too quietly.  
"Whos?"  
"Toki!" the volume of his voice seemed out of his control, as the name echoed off the great stone hallway around him. The moaning and grunting ceased. A minute passed. Two minutes. Two girls opened the door to the blond's room, looking thoroughly put out and only in their underwear. They were lead away by a happening-by Klokateer.  
"Comes in," Skwisgaar called after another minute.  
Toki edged his way into the lead guitarist's room, staring owlishly at the Swede, who had only bothered to throw on a pair of pajama pants at his arrival.  
"Well, what's you want?" Skiwsgaar asked, not unkindly, but not entirely warmly, either.  
"I wants to talk to you."  
"What abouts?"  
"Abouts… abouts being kidsnapped."  
"Oh," Skwisgaar looked uncomfortable as he sat up a little straighter in his bed. "Does… does you want to sits down?"  
Toki nodded and approached the bed, feeling a little nauseated at the scent of sex that hung in the air, thicker the closer he drew to his bandmate.  
"If you ams wantings sympathy, go talks to somebodies else," Skwisgaar wasted no time with awkward pauses as Toki finally took a seat, perched precariously on the very edge of the mattress.  
"I wants to know something."  
"Whats?"  
"I wants to know why yous guys lefts me there."  
"We didn't leaves you there! We broughts you back with us!" Skwisgaar looked affronted.  
"Dat ams't what I mean," Toki replied flatly.  
"Then what does you mean," Skwisgaar's eyes narrowed as he suspected the trajectory of this conversation.  
"Why dids you leave me and Abigail with Magnus for mores than a whole month?" Most disturbing about the question, aside from the implication inherent in it, was the continued matter-of-fact tone Toki kept as he asked it. He should be grateful that the band made it to him before he had been killed. Or he should have been furious that it took them so long to find him. He shouldn't be so calm. This made Skwisgaar feel an uncomfortable sense of guilt weighing down somewhere in his chest.  
"We gots you befores dat masked guy kills you, you knows. Shouldn'ts you be gratefuls for dat?" it came out a lot harsher than Skwisgaar meant, but Toki deserved it for stirring up these weird feelings in the Swede. Couldn't he just be glad they were all together, and safe, again?  
"Abigails told me to goes to my happy place, evens though we probably was gonna die, I shoulds remember the happiest time in my life. Does you know what I remembered?"  
"No," Skiwsgaar replied, dumbly.  
"I remembered de foist time you and I played togethers."  
Skwisgaar drew a sharp breath, nostrils flaring involuntarily.  
"And I remembers all the foists we has as a band. As a family. Nat'an calleds us brothers back in dat place." Skwisgaar looked down at his hands in his lap, picking at imaginary dirt under his nails. "Why didn't you say we was brothers, too?" The pretense of neutrality was gone now. Toki's voice had begun to shake ever so slightly. Skwisgaar was afraid to meet his gaze because he might find Toki crying. "Why didn's you comes for me? Why dids you leave Toki in dat horrisble place?"  
"We was scared," Skwisgaar offered, knowing it wouldn't be enough.  
"I woulds have come for you."  
"Even if it means dat you could dies?"  
"I woulds always come for you, Skwisgaar."  
Skwisgaar could handle a lot of things, but he couldn't handle Toki saying his name like that. Pity and desperation and disappointment, all wrapped up into an unbearable shitstorm of two syllables.  
"You ams't my brother Toki!" Skwisgaar finally managed to spit, forcing his gaze up to the younger man. Toki looked stricken. "Family is people whats you hates."  
"You… you don't hates me?" Skwisgaar remembered back to a time when Toki had told him how he really felt, albeit replacing hate with love as he said it, but saying "I hates you" felt untrue. Skwisgaar hated Magnus for taking Toki, he hated the feelings that came with his Norwegian counterpart missing and the subsequent substance abuse that dulled those feelings, he hated that he couldn't just say that goddamn it, he wanted Toki back. Hate was reserved for its true purpose.  
"I can't hates you. You ams't my brother because I woulds probably hate my brother. You means more den dat," Skiwsgaar damned his pale skin, which easily showed the blush creeping up his high cheekbones. He looked away again.  
"Skwisgaar…"  
"Can… cans I see de scar?" Skwisgaar suddenly asked, the need to see the physical remains of Toki's suffering overtaking him.  
Toki paused for a moment but ultimately nodded, pulling his shirt over his head and turning away from the taller man. Skwisgaar gently touched the skin just around the healing wound and then, carefully, very carefully, traced a practiced finger down the length of it. Toki's breath hitched his throat and he hiccupped to disguise it. He was glad to be facing away so Skwisgaar couldn't see his tears.  
Skiwsgaar pressed a palm against the wound and then slowly, very slowly, brought his lips down to the newly healed skin, sending a violent wave of sensation throughout Toki's body. He sucked another breath in through his teeth and clamped his eyes shut to stop the tears. He threw an arm across his eyes and jerked away from Skwisgaar, falling on his stomach on the bed.  
"I'ms sorry, Toki. Skwisgaar's hand found its way to Toki's older scars and he soothingly rubbed the brunette's back, whispering over and over until it became like a religious chant. "I'ms so sorry. Sos sorry."  
Toki curled up on his side and hugged himself tightly, his eyes puffy and his expression miserable.  
"We shoulds have come for you sooners. Please, please…" Skwisgaar offered comfort the only way he knew how, he gingerly wrapped his lithe form around Toki's body, pulling him close and burying his angular face in chestnut hair, relishing in a smell he had worried he'd never smell again.  
"Does you means it?"  
"I does, Toki. I does."


End file.
